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2021 NHL General Discussion


hab29RETIRED

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He is 20 years old.  its way too early to say he can never be a 60, 70, 80 point player.... way too early. 

 

He's in his third NHL season and still remains one of the youngest players in the league.

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43 minutes ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:

 

I didn’t explain myself well at all but I meant Laval players ready to play nhl now. Your point and Commandants point about the prospect pool in general is decent but they aren’t nhl ready and will be not at the same time. 
 

 


Im a KK fan and I think his defensive game is outstanding and when he plays physical he is great. His point production isn’t great and the difference between his current point production and 1st line centre production is HUGE. KK would need an incredible upward trajectory to get there. Is it possible? Of course but not likely. 
 

Suzuki will likely be Plex. I made that comparison before and I see it more and more. A creative centre that can pass and shoot, good for 70 points and defensively strong. He should get here and possibly more. 
 

Danault can’t put up points either. We have talked and agreed that what he does is vital to the team but he is light on points. 
 

We need a centre that can put up points. 

 

I think that's a pretty good assessment. I agree with your comparison of Suzuki and Plex. Suzuki is on a 50 point pace over an 80 game season and I definitely see him getting to 70 points. Now if you had 2 centres like that then you are in good shape.  KK has shown flashes but he needs to bring it consistently. 

 

You are absolutely right that we need more points from the centre ice position. Hopefully it can come from within. KK and Suzuki are definitely the keys to the Habs becoming a contender. 

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You don't want all your prospects ready at the same time either.  You can't go with a defence with 3 rookies on it.  You want Romanov to have the experience that he can play beside Brook, or Norlinder.... then you want Brook experienced a couple years, and he can break in Guhle. 

 

You don't want all three making the roster in the same year.  3 rookies out of 7 defencemen isn't going to work. 

 

Same thing up front.  Suzuki and KK have some experience so they can be put with new rookies making the team in a year or so in guys like Ylonen.  Heck, having a 3rd year KK, 2nd year Suzuki, and 1st year Evans down the middle this year hasn't been ideal... and now you have some who want to let Danault go, and go with Poehling, giving us 4 inexperienced centres next year.  You don't want all your youngsters in the same spots, they need some leaders too. 

 

It also helps to stagger the ELCs and when they expire for cap reasons.

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12 minutes ago, Commandant said:

You don't want all your prospects ready at the same time either.  You can't go with a defence with 3 rookies on it.  You want Romanov to have the experience that he can play beside Brook, or Norlinder.... then you want Brook experienced a couple years, and he can break in Guhle. 

 

You don't want all three making the roster in the same year.  3 rookies out of 7 defencemen isn't going to work. 

 

Same thing up front.  Suzuki and KK have some experience so they can be put with new rookies making the team in a year or so in guys like Ylonen.

 

It also helps to stagger the ELCs and when they expire for cap reasons.

Agree that you want to stagger you’re rookie dmen.  You also need legit top pairing dmen in the meantime. Who are those dmen?  For the most part, our D is composed of a bunch of over the hill or depth dmen. Petry is the only solid top 4 dman.  Even with him, we don’t know if that will be for another year, two years, or three years. What do you do in the meantime?  I think Weber’s window given his salary cap worth window is gone. Not sure about Price. We can stagger forwards, because there is good mix of young and old (at least on the wings), we don’t have that luxury on Defense. We NEED to acquire a legit top dman, otherwise we will see the same Mete type of experiments again, because you have to force kids in.

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14 minutes ago, Commandant said:

You don't want all your prospects ready at the same time either.  You can't go with a defence with 3 rookies on it.  You want Romanov to have the experience that he can play beside Brook, or Norlinder.... then you want Brook experienced a couple years, and he can break in Guhle. 

 

You don't want all three making the roster in the same year.  3 rookies out of 7 defencemen isn't going to work. 

 

Same thing up front.  Suzuki and KK have some experience so they can be put with new rookies making the team in a year or so in guys like Ylonen.  Heck, having a 3rd year KK, 2nd year Suzuki, and 1st year Evans down the middle this year hasn't been ideal... and now you have some who want to let Danault go, and go with Poehling, giving us 4 inexperienced centres next year.  You don't want all your youngsters in the same spots, they need some leaders too. 

 

It also helps to stagger the ELCs and when they expire for cap reasons.

 

Excellent analysis. On Danault specifically, the problem was his egregious contract demands. I'm all for re-signing him, but only if the contract makes sense. He's not really a top-6 C and we would be foolish to pay him like one, especially on a long-term deal. Hopefully this disastrous season tempers his expectations and we can lock him in at a reasonable rate.

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6 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Excellent analysis. On Danault specifically, the problem was his egregious contract demands. I'm all for re-signing him, but only if the contract makes sense. He's not really a top-6 C and we would be foolish to pay him like one, especially on a long-term deal. Hopefully this disastrous season tempers his expectations and we can lock him in at a reasonable rate.

 

Agree 100% on Danault.  He is valuable to the Habs but how much do you pay a good defensive center who's best offensive years have been 13 goals and  53 points ? The contract has to make sense. If you pay him too much then you suffer in other areas. 

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Typically speaking every 10 points has been worth about 1 million AAV.  So a 50 point centre asking for $5 million a year is not outrageous. 

 

Now, the new reality, with a flat cap for the next several years, that number probably comes down a bit.  If he wants the same contract Toffoli just took (he scores less than Toffoli but is better defensively and centres are worth more than wingers)... so if he takes 4 years 17 million (4.25 per year), I'd sign him to that no problem. 

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Lots of great comments in this discussion 👍

 

We lived for decades with lower point production from our centres. We all pined for a true #1 centre and of course that led to the trading of a franchise Dman for a winger to play centre! 
 

Im saying that with our current centre lineup we will be asking for a #1again. We can’t live on weak centre production, we tried, we failed. 
 

Sometimes you see a #1 out of KK and he is dominant at times. But we’ve seen flashes like that before, Galchenyuk, Kostitsyn, Eller. He looks like a 100 point player at times and a disaster at others. His game will improve but will he ever be an 80+ point guy? 
 

I think KK will eventually become Danault. His D game and board work are outstanding. 

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If KK becomes Danault, and Suzuki is a 70 point guy with strong defence as well, I'm willing to go forward with that as a top 2 centres.
 

You then have to hope Caufield is a 35-40g guy.

 

If you get that, the offence should be good enough to win with. 

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37 minutes ago, Commandant said:

Typically speaking every 10 points has been worth about 1 million AAV.  So a 50 point centre asking for $5 million a year is not outrageous. 

 

Now, the new reality, with a flat cap for the next several years, that number probably comes down a bit.  If he wants the same contract Toffoli just took (he scores less than Toffoli but is better defensively and centres are worth more than wingers)... so if he takes 4 years 17 million (4.25 per year), I'd sign him to that no problem. 

 

I think that's a reasonable amount for Danault.  I could live with that. 

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4 hours ago, tomh009 said:

I understand and generally agree with a BPA policy. However, we had an organizational need for centres and getting top-six centres on trades is not easy, either, so they decided that the positional need should influence the selection.

In retrospect (always easier), looking at the 2018 draft I am not certain there was any centre in that draft that has proven they merited such a high pick ... maybe not even a top 10 ... I can support prioritizing a position when several prospects are bunched together ... but I feared at the time that KK was a reach ... although only time will tell

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21 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Yeah, well, everyone is cowabunga with enthusiasm over doing exactly the same thing with Caulfield. Just saying.

 

What I notice about KK is this. During the bubble he was really hitting people - and doing so with real impact. In short, he was playing a power game. I understand that that may not be physically sustainable over a whole season. But it seems, at least to my eye, that this physical element has been more or less forgotten altogether. He needs to get back to that. Physicality seemed to open up offensive opportunities for him; he appears to be a guy where those two components go hand in hand.

I think he wants to hit. My take is that he's had two dirty hits in the last year, that cost the team points, so there may be a reluctance to repeat it. Players turn into the boards to draw boarding penalties. I also think DD is trying to encourage playing the puck first. Especially in the neutral zone. O zone hits seem to be fair game.

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3 hours ago, Neech said:

Jake Virtanen gets me-too'd.  Gotta wait for all the facts to come out, but where there's smoke there's usually fire in these cases.  

 

He always did seem like an entitled snot to me...but horrible news all around

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14 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

He always did seem like an entitled snot to me...but horrible news all around

When he started in the WHL he seemed like he would be a solid NHLer, fast skater, physical, but never quit panned out.

 

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1 hour ago, DON said:

When he started in the WHL he seemed like he would be a solid NHLer, fast skater, physical, but never quit panned out.

 

 

That’s part of the problem with him: he has all the tools. Doesn’t want to do the work or pay the price.

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1 hour ago, Commandant said:

I always said Vancouver reached on him.  I didn't have him in my top 10. 

 

A big whiff by a managerial team that has disproportionately hit triples and home runs in the first round (unlike ours). Of course, fans in Vancouver have been terrified of losing him ever since he was drafted, mortified that he would mutate into the second coming of Cam Neely. LOL.

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18 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

A big whiff by a managerial team that has disproportionately hit triples and home runs in the first round (unlike ours) ...

Sounds like an off-season move for whoever is GM might be to throw money/promotions at the Canucks scouting core (e,g., Scouting Director Brett Henning and Chief Amateur Scout Ron Delorme).

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12 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

Sounds like an off-season move for whoever is GM might be to throw money/promotions at the Canucks scouting core (e,g., Scouting Director Brett Henning and Chief Amateur Scout Ron Delorme).

 

That's a new core group.  Judd Brackett was the director before that and he's in Minnesota now.

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15 minutes ago, dlbalr said:

 

That's a new core group.  Judd Brackett was the director before that and he's in Minnesota now.

Thought the name didn't sound familiar

image.png

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Interestingly enough, Montreal wound up with someone from Vancouver's scouting core not that long ago but it was on the professional side, not amateur.  The Habs scooped up their former pro scouting director in Eric Crawford who has held that same title with the Canadiens since 2016.

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34 minutes ago, dlbalr said:

Interestingly enough, Montreal wound up with someone from Vancouver's scouting core not that long ago but it was on the professional side, not amateur.  The Habs scooped up their former pro scouting director in Eric Crawford who has held that same title with the Canadiens since 2016.

 

How many trades have we won since then? The only big loss being the Drouin deal. 

Most of the time we traded for an NHLer he seemed to come in and do well.  This is a good pickup. 

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